Sarah Surface, '16, vice-president of One Less; video interview

Interview with Sarah Surface, spring 2015, about her role in and observations of student advocacy and administrative response in the aftermath of the November 2014 "Rolling Stone" article, "A Rape on Campus."

0:19 How has sexual assault advocacy changed during your time at UVa?
â€œAdvocacy has become a lot more visible at UVa, but still has a ways to go.â€

1:30 How have responses to sexual assault changed within the UVa community?
â€œIâ€™ve seen a change in commitment to prevention, although I think again we have a long ways to go. A lot of times UVa talks about prevention in terms of safety or risk reduction, so, better lighting, more security, etc.â€ What we need is more education that â€œgets at the cultural norms that perpetuate assaults.â€

2:36 What advice do you have for students who want to get involved in sexual assault advocacy?
â€œThe #1 thing I would say, especially after this year, is to develop a plan for self-care.â€

3:26 What is a high priority area for improvement in UVaâ€™s response to sexual assault?
â€œEngagement.â€
Need to engage â€œthe â€˜typical studentâ€™ who is unsure of how to help out.â€

5:09 Can you talk about student reactions to the events of the 2014-2015 school year?
â€œWhen the Rolling Stone article broke, and then all the details began to unravel and then it was eventually discredited, what we felt was emotional exhaustion times, like, a million. To know that the work youâ€™d done at the university for three years might have been turned backwards was . . .â€

9:11 Can you talk about your interactions with students through One Less?
â€œWhatâ€™s really powerful for me is, you go into a room to do a presentation for One Less and you ask everyone to close their eyes and you say, â€˜raise your hand if you or anyone you know has ever been affected by sexual violence.â€™ And Iâ€™ve never been in a room where less than half of the hands go up.â€ That experience â€œmakes it hard for me to think about how people donâ€™t think they should be involvedâ€ with advocating for survivors.